Father Time deserves a speeding ticket

C.S. Lewis once said, “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

Easy for him to say. I'm thinking, as the midway point of my eighth decade on Earth appears just beyond the horizon, that some of us are getting to that future much faster than others.

This occurred to me the other afternoon out on the back deck.

Only a block away up the hill stands the tower of Saints Peter and Paul Church, a focal point of the Pierre community, both physically and spiritually. The bells in that tower signal the time every quarter-hour, and I love being so close as to hear them ring. But as I was daydreaming with Oliver in the sun the other afternoon, it seemed to me that somebody at the church had turned the speed button on the chimes clock on “high.”

Was time really fleeting by this quickly? The four bells signifying 15 minutes past the hour rang. A couple minutes later, or so it seemed, came the half-hour bells. Then suddenly the quarter-before-the-hour bells chimed. Before I knew what had happened, a full hour had passed. At least according to the church tower it had.

Even on these summer days when I'm pretty much slacking off while I'm between permanent locations, the day seems to fly. After a couple hours watching the morning news shows and reading the newspaper, I grab a quick bite to eat and take Oliver for his first run of the day in the gulch. Back for a shower and a check of my email, it's then time for one of my guilty pleasures, an hour with “The Young and the Restless.”

C.S. Lewis once said, “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

Easy for him to say. I'm thinking, as the midway point of my eighth decade on Earth appears just beyond the horizon, that some of us are getting to that future much faster than others.

This occurred to me the other afternoon out on the back deck.

Only a block away up the hill stands the tower of Saints Peter and Paul Church, a focal point of the Pierre community, both physically and spiritually. The bells in that tower signal the time every quarter-hour, and I love being so close as to hear them ring. But as I was daydreaming with Oliver in the sun the other afternoon, it seemed to me that somebody at the church had turned the speed button on the chimes clock on “high.”

Was time really fleeting by this quickly? The four bells signifying 15 minutes past the hour rang. A couple minutes later, or so it seemed, came the half-hour bells. Then suddenly the quarter-before-the-hour bells chimed. Before I knew what had happened, a full hour had passed. At least according to the church tower it had.

Even on these summer days when I'm pretty much slacking off while I'm between permanent locations, the day seems to fly. After a couple hours watching the morning news shows and reading the newspaper, I grab a quick bite to eat and take Oliver for his first run of the day in the gulch. Back for a shower and a check of my email, it's then time for one of my guilty pleasures, an hour with “The Young and the Restless.”

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